#i'm very good at posting devlogs every like

[thelonelyshore-if]

The Lonely Shore Devlog #14

( 5/1/2025 ) Chapter Three, part 2: 45,413 words Total Wordcount: 379,569 words

Hello, hello! I hope everyone had a great first day of May c:

I wanted to start off by saying thank you all so much for the kind words about the latest update! It's been an honor getting to share the story with you all, and the fact that folks are enjoying last month's update still has me feeling super excited <3

Unfortunately, life got in the way of finishing chapter 3, part 2 by the end of last month, which was my hope. I'm confident the part 2 update will be finished this month, however. I'd love to get it done over the next few weeks, but May is the beginning of the busy season at work, so we'll see what happens. There's a lot I'm excited about in this next part of the chapter...and, once it's all wrapped up, I get to move on to chapter 4, which has a ton of stuff I can't wait for.

Honestly, I don't have much to say here beyond that! I wanted to post a devlog, since it's been a bit and since I wasn't able to wrap up the next update by the end of April, but I'm feeling good about things!

I wish you all well, and as always, here's a preview for the next update <3

[ravenstargames]

✦ Lost in Limbo Devlog #13 | 11.11.24

Feels good to be back! This is our first post-Kickstarter devlog and I'm so excited to be writing it.

First of all— Lost in Limbo was successfully funded on September 20th, 2024! 🎉🎇

Yep, it has been almost two months, but it's still something to celebrate! Thanks to every single one of you for making this possible! We didn't meet all our stretch goals (there were a lot and taxes are a pain) but that doesn't mean we are giving up on those. More on that another time.

There's a lot of things we want to show y'all, so let's jump into it!

A sneak peak of Envy's postcard!

Raquel has been working hard on getting the "special postcards from your favorite LI" ready to send them to print ASAP! Initially we were going to use art we already had of the LIs, but we thought it was more exciting to offer y'all exclusive art pieces. After this, Raquel will focus exclusively on the rework of the sprites!

We hosted a few polls and got a lot of feedback. If you missed it, you can check it here!

Astro says hello :^)

As you know, the Extended Demo will feature more locations, including a glimpse of the MC's city, Faybourne! Astro is getting the main street ready for you and your bestie as you go on about your day. I've calculated around three / four different and new locations to properly pace the demo as we imagined it in the first place!

The writing deparment (me. i'm the department) has been focusing on the Extended Demo script. I have a lot of things to play with, like the flavor choices, the personality choices, and more. I want to create a proper balance because one of the things y'all asked for was more choices, and the pacing needed a bit of fixing, as we already knew!

The Extended Demo will actually introduce characters you've heard about, like your mom, your ominous grandmother, and your bestie. So no more talking about them, you'll actually get to meet them like we wanted to!

There will also be more time with the LIs, and hopefully the amount of time you spend with each one of them will feel more balanced, too.

Programming has been an adventure! Huge shoutout to Feniks for helping me figure out how to properly make a toggle for the timed choices as well as helping me polish the personality system. What a lifesaver!

So the timed choices toggle now works perfectly. That means you'll be able to turn them off if you'd like to play the game without being jumpscared by a timer—that doesn't mean you won't be able to mess up, though, on purpose or not :^) This is a dark game, after all!

The personality choice system lets you decide how the MC reacts to things including the nature of your romance with the LI. That means dialogue will automatically change in certain parts of the game to reflect the personality of your MC, some options will be locked, some unlocked, etc. There's three different personalities available.

For colorblind folks, the choices will have a different icon when you hover over them for you to know they're different!

Also, I've started coding some extra mini cgs Kayden's been working on! There'll be more in the Extended Demo to enhance the experience, so we hope you enjoy them! :^)

All the packaging stuff has arrived to our provisional headquarters (Raquel's home), and our business cards have been secured! Every backer with physical goodies will receive one for free :^) This month has been all about managing Backerkit, orders and merch, as well as preparing the Extended Demo. We hope we can receive everything very very soon and start shipping packages starting December!

For now, that's it! There's a lot of stuff going behind the scenes, a lot of things that need attention, and a lot of planning happening. Also the catastrophe the DANA has been on our cities is keeping me a bit on edge, but I'm trying to focus on work. This Saturday I'm going on a trip to Greece with my family, so I'll disconnect then! It's our first time traveling to a different country since I was like...seven years old? And we have been saving up and preparing a lot for the trip, so we are excited :^)

I hope everyone has been taking care and doing alright! Have a huge hug from the Ravenstar Team, and see you around!

[falciesystemessays]

so mark brown, host of the game analysis youtube channel Game Maker's Toolkit, has released his first game, Mind Over Magnet, just about a month ago. in his recent postmortem video of the thing, he says that the common sentiment from reviewers is that it's a solid 8/10. a very polished but very uninspired puzzle platformer, with good design fundamentals but without The Sauce that makes it something special.

and like, even as a genuine fan of game maker's toolkit, who uses its videos on game design as comfort media, it's hard not to be a cynic about it. hard not to say "this is the kind of game that the gmtk approach produces." a game that's good, but not great. a game that entertains for an afternoon, but doesn't change your life. a work of craftsmanship, but not of art.

but i know this isn't fair. most video games are, in fact, like that. not every puzzle platformer can be an INSIDE or Braid. 90% of everything is crap, and mind over magnet is, for all its flaws, a video game that actually released and was pretty alright. that's more than a lot of us can say. and maybe those reviewers aren't seeing the best of the game, i haven't played it yet so i couldn't say if they're really onto something. mark's devlogs are still super inspiring and insightful, and i still like gmtk a lot.

but i think... this is the only way this story could have ended. three years spent developing a game that is simply pretty good. one that probably would have flopped if it wasn't mark fucking brown posting it. not because the game is necessarily bad, but because there's simply nothing special to it that really gives it the pull. that's just how it goes sometimes, you put your mind, body, and soul into developing a game, and it doesn't set the world on fire. most games don't.

when he said at the end "i don't know if i would ever want to do this again, but if mind over magnet is the only game i put into the world, i'm happy with that," that was the realest shit in that entire series. game design full-time isn't for everyone. i don't even really know if it's for me, i definitely couldn't work in The Industry full-time. being a gamedev is a really compelling thing for a lot of people who've loved games their whole life and want to be part of that. but it's not easy, it never is, and it's not for everyone. even the people who obsess over game design. that's not to say you shouldn't try if you really want to, but that the process of making the games you love will probably be a lot more involved than you could ever dream of. if you want hard proof of that, uh, Check Out Developing.

[zombeebunnie]

Trembling Essence Devlog 3:💙Final touch ups to the Afternoon route!💙

Hi and welcome new followers, it doesn't feel like it's been a while month! Here's an update to progress of the game! :]

There will be spoilers if you haven't played through the [Extended Demo], specifically the afternoon route. Click here if you would like to play! :]

*To avoid confusion from my last game development post, please note that game updates about the game will be every two weeks to possibly 1 month(???) this year since I didn't clarify that correctly in devlog 2.

This post will be a little all over the place since there was week and a half where I wasn't able to work on the game mixed in with drawing practice. :,]

The cooking scene:

Outside of testing everything, this section won't be tampered with any further! Woohoo!

While I went to clean up this section with new and updated content I unfortunately had really bad writers block and it took a while before I was finally able to adjust. What caused most of this was redoing a lot of the old code and new callbacks. In the [Extended Demo] I didn't specify them correctly and tweaking it with new situations was hard to do. Once completed I went back and did a couple of test runs and there were still issues with Noah's responses. In the end I decided to just keep what I managed to fix and remove the rest. There was left over new content I forgot to take out in certain choices and pushed it further into Day 4+ to keep the pacing balanced. *Callbacks in canon with how Noah reacts to what's added into the soup are still here! :[]

The sewing scene:

Around this section is when the writers block was really getting to me. I really loved what was originally here along with the new content but not being able to go back and continue from where I left off for almost a week and a half was hard to get used to.

At some point while I was working on all of this I lost the new script I created for this scene and I thought I saved over it by accident and would have to start all of it from scratch if I couldn't find it. In very good news, I found it! I accidently saved it in a different folder. :,P For now I decided to combine the new content with the version from the [Extended Demo] which includes quality of life changes to the dialog/scenes/choices etc. This will take some time to go through and I want to be extra careful not to misplace anything this time. :P

Animated scene:

I finally got the chance to add in a animation scene! Yay! :D

I talked about this some time last year about wanting to animate this part of the game to give that immersive view of how bad the storm is outside. Originally I had planned to animate the morning, afternoon, and evening scenes too but after going over it with my play tester we both agreed that it should only be animated during parts of the game when it's genuinely needed.

Weird glitch/bug encounter solved?:

I have no idea how this happened but at some point through testing out the game, 3 CG's turned completely black, specifically CG's where the player(Y/N) would turn out the lights. I didn't catch it at first until I noticed the screen was too dark and you literally couldn't see anything. I went through the images folder and all of them were pitch black. I thought I would have to go back and remake the images but it somehow fixed itself?

More stuff was added behind the scenes BUT I'm not ready to share it just yet and I don't want this update post to be too long. I'm going to take some time out and complete everything else I didn't get the chance to work on and hopefully by the next game development post I'll be working on the morning route! :,D

If you like what I create, please consider supporting what I do on kofi [Here]! All donations and tips help tremendously while I continue to work on the game. Thank you to those that optionally bought the [Extended Demo] on itch.io. :,]

Q&A / Ask box is open:

To know and understand Noah through Asks and random posts about lore, they'll be under #Get to know: Noah ! :]

I had a lot of fun answering recent asks I've been sent!

**Some asks won't be answered if it contains spoilers but I do appreciate what I receive. :]

If you have any questions about Trembling Essence/Noah feel free to ask here or on itch.io please. This makes it easier for me to see and answer accordingly! I enjoy hearing from you guys!

That's all I have to share right now. Thank you everyone for the support and patience! :,]

[crescencestudio]

Devlog #35 | 09.26.23

Hi everyone!

Hope the beginning of Fall has been kind to you all <3 To be Frank, it has not been Kind to me LMFAO. But I'll get into that, so let's dive in yippee!

Before I do, someone liked this post recently, which was such a throwback. It was before the full demo was out and everything!! I was so young and full of life. I'm going to sprinkle some comparison shots of the new assets with the old ones to break up the text and also walk down memory lane with me! (Full GUI not shown as I'm still waiting on the assets)

Chapter Cards (Left: After | Right: Before)

The "Progress"

I'm going to structure this devlog a little differently from the usual template. The main reason being, for those of you who didn't see, I have not been feeling Myself recently.

This month I found myself all out of sorts. While I felt like I was making progress and doing so much everyday read: fighting for my life, when I looked back on things at the end of this month, I didn't feel like I really did much.

On a higher level, I finished fulfilling Kickstarter physical rewards, opened a Kofi shop of the remaining merch, edited Druk's route and continued writing Etza's route, updated assets and code for the updated demo, and then general commission stuff (BGs from Vui, soundtracks from Peter, etc.).

But overall, Alaris felt largely like it was kinda sitting at around the same spot as it did when I entered this month. Which made me a little sad! I had wanted to make So Much Progress on Alaris because next month I won't be able to work on it really. Then, I realized I haven't taken a break from game development since I started it two years ago HA!!!

The Real Progress

Development for me has been back-to-back. Chapter releases every 1-2 months during my first half year of development, Full Demo release shortly after, Kickstarter shortly after, Full Game Development shortly after. When I was feeling burnt out from Alaris, I made intertwine. Then I was Heavily Involved in the development of two games shortly after.

All of this on top of my IRL responsibilities, which include a job, PhD school, and well, functioning as a normal human occasionally.

And then here we are at the end of September 2023, and I'm wondering why even though I creatively want to work on Alaris, I find my brain literally just getting too tired to think.

Etza CG (Left: After | Right: Before)

I think ever since the Kickstarter, I've put a lot of pressure on myself to consistently put out LOTS of updates for each monthly devlog. I don't want people to think I'm not working on things or I'm not committed to delivering after giving me their hard earned money. But now, with two years under my belt, I'm realizing that is... HMM maybe too high of a standard to put on myself for my first game ever. There are many much more seasoned developers than me who don't put that pressure on themselves (which is Good and Healthy).

So this month, I debated scrounging around and gathering all my crumbs to give you all a devlog that you'll be satisfied with. But I decided ultimately that wouldn't be good for me and would honestly not be the most transparent way to present the current process of things.

And so. Here I am. Head in my Hands. Letting you all know that while I'm not "burnt out," I am.... only human LOL (one human at that). And so some months, like this one, will just not have much progress to report. Not because I'm not working on it or any other deeper reason. But because it's physically impossible and unreasonable for me to be continuously pushing out a steady stream of content.

In-Game Sprites & BGs (Left: After | Right: Before)

Next month, I'lll be taking a vacation. It's actually my first Big, Official one in a Long Time! I'm very excited for it. And while I did initially think about working on Alaris while I was traveling on trains or things like that, I decided to respect my own need to be a Human and just take a break for once in my life. I don't even want to say I Might work on things, because that sentiment alone will pressure me to make some progress. So yes. Next month, there will be no devlog or updates. But please rest assured, I am "working on Alaris" by letting myself just Exist and Rest Up!

Not an Alaris screenshot but it is market research that deserves to be included because I played House in Fata Morgana recently and it was Phenomenal!

Thank you all for understanding and your continued support. I'm extremely appreciative to have such a kind and patient community. Hope you all have a wonderful October filled with Fall Treats, and I'll see you in November! <3

[slugdragoon]

Hello there!

I see that you do a lot of devlogs here on Tumblr. May I know if that's helped you with getting people interested in your game? I'm a beginner game dev and I currently only post my devlogs on Twitter/X. I only put long discussion-form logs in here once in a while.

Do you think it's worth putting my shorter devlogs in here as well?

Good question, one I ask myself while I'm doing it, and I think most people would give the advice that devlogs are more for other developers than potential players.

They, for most people do not serve as effective marketing, but it depends on what you're after. I personally have put out 16 video devlogs as well as 3 longer form pixel art tutorial videos since I've started 5 months ago, and I always post them here, on Twitter, and my Ko-fi page. The result is that I have almost 100 subscribers on YouTube, a dozen or so regulars that like my posts on Tumblr, and on Twitter excepting a few small interactions it mostly seems like people looking to trade promotions for their own games. So a very small following after 5 months.

The reason I do it now is that the best time to plant a seed was yesterday, the second best time is today. Better to have 100 followers excited when they see my prototype morphing into a real game down the line than try to show it off for the first time. The second reason is, even at small numbers I personally find it motivating. I feel accountable to even a small number of people that leave nice comments, and I want to make something new week to week to show them. In terms of sheer numbers no, you have to be a bit crazy to do this.

I'm also in a unique situation where I've been unemployed since the end of a contract, looking for a programming job but the market is shot, and I have a wonderful parter that encourages me to just be a stay-at-home parent for a while and take my one shot at building a game until I get another employment opportunity.

It's a balance though, I used to try to hit a devlog each week, but that was unsustainable. Recording and editing a video 1 out of every 7 days cuts seriously into dev time, so now I try to hit every 2, sometimes 3 weeks to try to make enough substantial changes to talk about. I started also by making a lot of posts about other RPGs while I was journalling my thoughts on class and party designs, and I thought I would go deeper into that, but those have dropped off.

Also, I haven't posted in longer than usual, but I'm a dev making a game directly inspired by Shin Megami Tensei - so you know Metaphor Refantazio has me locked in hard. I don't play as many games since starting my own, but this one is "research".

[hpowellsmith]

I'm seeing noises about Tumblr becoming more precarious once again, and I'm very nervous indeed because this is the main space I enjoy hanging out in public online and it's a huge part of my work! Looks like it would be a good idea to branch out more though, so... where would you most want to follow me to keep up with updates, ask questions about my games, and so on?

None of these really does everything that Tumblr does and a lot of them would make it harder to make off-the-cuff posts (I wouldn't want to send people emails every time my wife says something witty about my games) but I could use something like curiouscat or a google form to simulate anon asks I guess.

[darennkeller]

My solo indie game reached 10000 wishlists! I never thought it would be possible without a proper marketing team, budget or following.

How did I get those 10000 wishlists? Time to share what worked for me!

Disclaimer: I did sign with a publisher two months ago, and while they are already working on marketing stuff, nothing has been published yet. Those numbers are 100% from my own "marketing" efforts. There are people way better at this than me! I'm just sharing my experience here and I'll let you judge if it's helpful. Some things that did not work with me might work with others (and vice versa)!

(you can also read this and more in this free patreon article)

Let's sort what worked out the best for me.

Steam Events > Influencers > Reddit > Twitter > Devlogs

It might sound obvious, but take the time to check your wishlists regularly, especially whenever you're trying to give visibility to the game with a post/video/announcement/mail. It will allow you to know what works and doesn't. I usually check out youtube and twitch for gameplay videos or press articles whenever there's a bump while I'm not in an event or did not post anything.

Keep posting stuff on social networks. I know it takes time for a small reward, but it's good to have those regular wishlists and connect with other game devs/influencers. It also shows development is alive and you never know when it will reach an influencer or press. When I stopped sharing my stuff for a while, wishlists completely dropped, I was even loosing some everyday! However, do not post stuff EVERY day and do not spend too much time on this. My best results were with a few key posts on reddit (Reddit is harsh, but very rewarding), same thing on twitter. Sharing something interesting every 1-2 weeks instead of small things everyday seems to work better for me. Of course if you like to share your day to day progress regardless of the result, that's good and that's what social networks are for originally! Don't forget people go there to connect with others, not to be spammed by people promoting their stuff.

I publish devlogs on my youtube channel. I got ~200 wishlist from more than 100k views that took me weeks of work. I don't think publishing devlogs is an efficient way to promote your game, unless you go viral or that your videos also target players by being more accessible without too much technical stuff (mine are definitely targeting game devs for now). I'm only speculating here, but I think game developers are mostly interested in learning from your journey than actually wishlisting/playing your game compared to players which results in less wishlists. So do it only if it makes you happy and you want to share your journey (and be careful not to overwork while doing it)!

Influencers are great for 3 reasons:

1. They give your game visibility.

2. They give you feedback to make your game better.

3. They are usually keen to do it for free to help small indie devs.

Build yourself a press list: a list of press and influencer that might be interested in playing your game. I made a list of games that I think have the same target as mine and search on youtube/twitch for influencers that played those games. They usually have their business mail in the about section or on one of their social accounts. When you have something very interesting to show them (a new demo, event or announce) send them all a mail (but don not spam them)!

Here are two accounts you should follow to get tips about how to properly reach to influencers (and other game marketing in general): Clemmy and Wanderbot (subscribe to their newsletters!)

Events are huge for wishlists. It's easy and it does not take time to submit and they are usually free. But there are two big issues with events:

1. You have to find them.

The best free place to find most events is on the HTMAG discord created by Chris Zukowski (@AdventureMtn).

There's also this amazing calendar with all the events (thanks to @mreliptik for sharing this with me)!

2. You have to be accepted.

You need a demo, quality marketing assets to share and a good steam page. Again, Chris has some awesome tutorials (free and paid) to get a great steam page up. Consider supporting him if his tutorials helped you!

WARNING Do not submit your game to the steam next fest too soon like I did. You want to submit as late as possible, ideally just before your release. Each game gets one shot at the steam next fest, and the more wishlists you have going in, the more wishlists you'll get. I made that mistake because I thought I would release the game 2 months later (lol).

On a side note, you will have tons of wishlist deletions. Don't worry about it, that's perfectly normal (I won't lie, the first 1000 deletions still hit me hard though).

I think the best time to create your steam page is as soon you have a small trailer, screenshots and interesting description that do not look like a prototype full of placeholders. The sooner you have it, the sooner you start collecting wishlists! With the steam page also comes the whole steam community package, which is a plus to keep in touch with people who like your game. I don't really see any disadvantage in having a steam page early, but you might want to plan the communication around the page release to maximize visibility right away. Do not release it without telling anyone! When you demo is out, you can update your page and announce it everywhere too (try to give the exclusivity to a big showcase if you can!).

Things that did not work for me: devlogs, replying to influencers asking for games on twitter, using those spammy hashtags to promote your game (#wishlistwednesday etc...), posting uninteresting stuff about the game developement EVERY day, reposting the same content, posting on the popular subreddits, sharing my game on those "share your work" channel on discord servers, paid ads and plenty of other little "tricks" I wasted my time on. I think some things did not work out because of my game specifically. For example, some games definitely look better than others on socials. I don't think mine is, and it might explain why posting on socials is not as efficient as for other games (or maybe I'm wrong and I just did not find the right way to make it look interesting on socials!).

I hope this was was a nice read! Thanks again for your support and don't hesitate if you have questions!

[facet-project]

pre-blog catchup diary

*disclaimer: this is ALL pre-alpha art. these screenshots are BEFORE visual development started. it's ugly. it's supposed to be. i was focused on programming and didn't want aesthetics to get in the way. pretend in your heart that this is all beautiful pixel art

anyway go below the readmore for details!!

i started working on this game in october 2023!! i had been learning gdscript before that, a little bit, but i hadn't fully committed to this project until then. pictured below is. the First build of the game vs the most current build. we've come so far.

the prototype was just a one-week build of the farming sim. so i could test how the time mechanic worked (time only moves when you do an action, you're not on a constant ticking clock)(this makes it much easier to strategize what you'll do in a day and letting the player go at their own pace, making the game feel more relaxed)(you can also... undo actions... which was just me testing out the code in this version but in the full version... will have different Implications)

i am all by my lonesome on this project. mechanically at least. my brother, girlfriend, dad, and my best friends are constantly helping me test things and i bounce ideas off of them all the time. it helps that my brother is a master GM and writer and my girlfriend is a software developer. and i lean very heavily on my dad for music/soundscape assistance. so yes, solodev, but also i am not an island

so the prototype was made when i was still learning gdscript past the phase of "tutorials for babies that produce a single number-go-up game" which is. hard!! since this is a much more complex project. it's easy to make anything in isolation, it's harder to figure out how to make new systems weave into a bigger project! fucking hell i didn't even know about custom resources!!!!

the prototype went off with FLYING COLORS though. girlfriend and brother played it over the weekend i gave it to them and it worked, it made sense, and watching the two of them test out the mechanics gave me some very good ideas for future builds. also nothing crashed and gf couldn't find any crazy exploits! (however pictured below is the incredibly fucked up floating rabbit glitch that i couldn't fix)

i finished it in june and took a break in july. august will be the first proper devlog for this! i'm excited to have a little dev journal around! i probably will only post consistently about once a month, with maybe some little posts here and there about characters or concept art i'm excited for

so what's next?

TIME TO GO BUILD ALPHA, BABY!!!!

which sounds exciting but i'm basically. starting from scratch again. new, fresh godot file. so it feels like i'm not very far in, even though i have an entire working prototype on my desktop.

and.... geez.... gotta actually make the pixel art and implement it into a working file???? so that it doesn't look like dogshit???? that would be nice. i didn't want to do it for prototyping/pre-alpha because i really wanted to make sure i had the capacity to code the game before putting my heart and soul into the art. and now i'm very certain i do?? it's not hard, it just takes time. and the time will pass anyway!!

i have two campaigns planned for the game, one that's smaller and one that's larger. the bigger one is the typical make your own character farming simulator, played straight in the setting. but i'm working on the smaller one first! you play as a specific character for the first year of the story. not all of the game mechanics are turned on for this mode, and it's more story-oriented than the straight Farming Simulator, so i think it's a good place to put development energy into. get it all ironed out. make it make sense before blowing it up on a larger scale. and it's more contained to test in which is a bonus

anyway. i'm going to post build updates on this on the last day of every month. and!! i'm not going to say a Lot about how the game works quite yet but the askbox is open. i don't think anyone will ask anything cause this is still in really early stages but it's there if you want it i guess

[petricakegames]

Devlog: General

Well, I've spent the last several hours smooshing my face against javascript and CSS in Twine trying to get it to do something that seems quite simple and yet it refuses to cooperate--so I'm taking a break to chatter here. The problem is: I know just enough code and syntax to break everything and not enough to fix it 😂

As the above implies, I've started some UI work for a new project! It's been two weeks since the game jam version of "Another Round" got published, and it's gotten some lovely reviews 🥰 and I still love it to bits. (You should play it, if you haven't. Or if you have. I've played it for fun a few times myself) I've been noodling around the edits I want to do--nothing major, some smoothing out, a bit of polish, another round (hah) of typo extermination. I'd like to have the final version done by the end of the year.

I am very new to Twine. I started poking it a year-ish ago but didn't get far beyond the basics of moving between passages. I've been taking it more seriously the last few months and (because I'm a Libra) spent most of my skill points in aesthetics. Designing a pretty UI has been more important than, oh, I don't know, actually making it a game. "Variables? Who needs variables when the vibes are good?"

Me. Turns out, it's me that needs variables.

Since the best way to learn is by playing, the only way to win is by learning and the only way to begin is by beginning, my next project is here to teach! Me..to teach me--I'm not making an educational game.

As part of the Alphabet Superset challenge, every week (ish) for the next six months I'll be posting an update to this game. Each "episode" will vary in length (b/n 500-5000 words) and focus on a theme from the spec fic section of tvtropes.org. Think 90s-era, monster-of-the-week style television with a surprising amount of heart and an unsurprising amount of camp.

You are an agent of [AGENCY NAME REDACTED]--a covert branch of the US Department of the Interior, tasked with the investigation and conservation of paranormal entities, objects and forces found within the United States. Folks, welcome to...

The scope of each "episode" will be small--only a few scenes, typically--which gives me something tangible to work on while I learn how to use Twine better. Six months is a daunting amount of time to commit to this, but my goal is to both grow my Twine skills and establish a supported routine around my creative process so, hey, the time is going to pass anyway. I may as well try, right?

Anyway, that's all for now. First episode will go up next Friday. But I figure it'll take a bit to build some steam. I've got to stop fixating on the damn UI...

okay, I'm gonna take a break and try to smooch a hot tiefling

[ravenstargames]

✦ Lost in Limbo Devlog #7 | 11.02.23

And November is here! 💜 This month has been packed with work for all of us and a few of irl events like birthdays, family vacations and so on! We hope October has been a good month for y'all—we have made some progress on different areas, so let's jump right into it, shall we?

For the spooky month we had Kayden work on both the Halloween Special Ravenstar icon and an art piece of our dear Master Gael enjoying the festivities! I wanted to feature this piece in the devlog as we only posted it on Twitter—my fault! I came back from a trip with my parents last saturday so everything was a bit chaotic and I didn't schedule the tumblr post T_T But here it is! We hope you like it as much as we do!

And now for the actual progress of the game, Raquel has finished Amon's CG and has been working on Envy's (we are giving you this little sneak peek!). She's also getting ready to work on Gael's, and we estimate that as soon as Gael's is finished, we'll be able to open our itch.io page! I have also been working on the itch thumbnails, covers, etc! 💜

We have also started working on the concept art of the first secondary character you'll meet in the demo. They had a sprite already, but we have improved so much it didn't sit right with us to just use the old sprite. We are redoing their design for it to be more attractive and unique!

In previous devlogs we talked about having six supporting characters in the first demo, but that changed along with the script. Don't worry—you'll meet them eventually!

The programming department (me) has been working hard to finish the last few screens of the demo, those being the Extras screen, the Gallery selection screen, each LI's individual gallery, and the credits. I have also been testing how to unlock the CGs and adjusting a few more things. This month I'm confident I'll finish the last screen left and then there will only be a few adjustments left. We'll see, hehe. I like to remain positive! 💜

The demo script is officially done and being revised by Allie, our lovely editor! As of right now, they have finished reading the script for the first time and we have already talked about having a meeting to discuss some things. We are beyond excited! I have also sent the script to a few friends who are interested in the project to gather as much feedback as I can, so hopefully I can start coding the script really really soon! 💜

In this devlog, you can tell some departments are finishing their work! Writing and Programming are coming to an end, so I (Seyl) will most likely move to other areas that need help. We are still working hard to bring you the demo around February, but we'll see how things work out for us. There's still a feeew things to do, but we hope you are as happy with our progress as we are!

See you all very soon! Remember to rest, take care of yourselves, and remember that your best and your worst looks different every day! 💜

[steellotus54]

This is how you do a pinned post right?

Hiya! I'm Marisa, but you can call me Mari. I've been lurking about for a while now, and I figure it's time I changed that!

Literally everything is below the cut, on account of there being so much text.

My Tags

Whoops, I left this empty on purpose! I’ll add tags here as they become necessary, so check back every once in a while.

What I do (and want to do)

Worldbuilding (Been doing it in some form in my spare time for as long as I can remember. No idea how good any of it is, but I’ll occasionally post about it nonetheless - I love talking about the stuff I make.)

Pixel art (I've lost track of how long I've been doing it for, but nevertheless I'd like to think I'm at least decent at it.)

Game Development (I have too many ideas and must make them. With Godot, of course.)

Make music (Of the chiptune variety specifically. I got famistudio a while ago and I have no clue what I’m doing. I’ll figure something out though.)

Stuff I Like (in no particular order)

Splatoon Franchise (I'm a series vet, played since the first game's testfire!)

Celeste (One of, if not the best example(s) of video games as an art form. I can and will die on this hill.)

Terraria and Minecraft (I'm a sucker for sandboxes where you can build shit. Granted, I'm mediocre at actually doing so, but what can I say.)

Mindustry (The best game you can play on a phone. And it's on steam + itch. And it has official mod support on all platforms. And it's still receiving content updates. And- Dies)

Ultrakill (Sensory overload: the shooter, but it’s fun so I don’t care.)

Octopath Traveler 2 (I'm Very Normal about Castti. I'm totally not obsessed with her what could you possibly be talking about.)

No Man’s Sky

Noita

Slime Rancher

Cult of the Lamb

Electronic and Chiptune music (I fucking love this stuff and I cannot explain why for the life of me.)

Where to find me (and not find me)

You can find me on bluesky (where I post my art) and youtube (where I rarely post video devlogs and whatever else comes to mind). Relevantly, you will not find me on tiktok or instagram - I choose not to use either of these platforms for a variety of reasons, and I will not expound upon them.

Boundaries

This list is not a DNI. It describes how I will act or respond regarding certain situations or kinds of people, because that’s how boundaries actually work. Also note that this list is here for transparencies sake and is non-exhaustive. I can and will make liberal use of the block button for reasons not listed.

I block TERFs, radfems, and bigots of any other variety on sight. This blog is a trans-friendly space, and I will NOT tolerate bigotry when I see it. This is your first and only warning.

Additionally, fuck JK Rowling. If you interact with JK Rowling's works, you’ll get blocked.

While we’re on the subject, don’t refer to me with traditionally masculine terms (dude, bro, and the like) or he/him pronouns - I don’t care what your reasoning is. If you do it once unintentionally as a force of habit I won’t be particularly aggravated, but repeat occurrences will result in a block.

I don't mess with gacha games (or any others that are microtransaction-heavy for that matter) as I believe them to be predatory and unethical. If you recommend that I (or anyone else) play any gacha game(s) on my posts, you get blocked.

I'm here to have a nice fun time, NOT to have arguments with randos. Try and pick a fight with me, and you’ll get blocked. What constitutes 'picking a fight' will be determined at my discretion. Quote: "I am not interested in discourse. I am right."

If I didn't put something here and/or you want clarification about something, I encourage you to ask, but I request that you respect my decision to not disclose information about myself. To state this more clearly: Do not pressure me to post (or otherwise make public) information about myself. If you do, I WILL block you immediately. This extends to non-personal information of any variety. Who I am offline is none of your business, end of story.

Don’t ask me for donations or to boost a donation post. I understand that finances are tough for a lot of you, but I don’t have the money to spare, nor is this the correct blog to be asking for this kind of assistance from. These requests will be deleted when they are received. I will block you if this occurs more than once.

Last, but certainly not least: If your blog is untitled and/or lacks a profile picture, I will block you if you follow me. You look like a bot in that instance. I shouldn’t have to explain this.

That just about covers everything! I hope you find my little corner on this hellsite at least somewhat enjoyable to pass through. May good fortune find y'all!

[zombeebunnie]

Trembling Essence Devlog 2:💙Testing the Afternoon route!💙

Hello guys and welcome new followers, here's how the progress of the game is going in a valentine theme! :]

This part will contain spoilers if you haven't played through the [Extended Demo], specifically the afternoon route. Click here if you would like to play! :]

Now that game development posts are every two weeks I spent first week brainstorming ideas and putting the script writing in order before I went in and continued fixing up what was left of afternoon route. :[]

Afternoon route:

Since this is still just Day 3, I wanted to be extra careful with the pacing since I'm still balancing between a meaningful slow-burn and not to over-doing it. :,] I kept most of what I added recently fairly simplistic.

In good news the part leading up to the kitchen scene is done outside of a couple of grammar checks. Not much was changed here from what I had already fixed.

Last week I talked about how I wanted the closeness build-up to feel more rewarding. I had a lot of fun going through and updating this section but I did get carried away adding more than I should of here since it's a slow-burn moment. I'm still keeping what I fixed but taking out parts that suit more of a Day 4/5+ situation. I'd show a screenshot of it since it'll be a while until I come back to it but it's kind of spoilery(?) in it's own way HOWVEVER, I can say it was two light-hearted situations that can only be triggered by your interactions with Noah. :,] *The callbacks that are in canon with how Noah reacts to what you add into the soup are still here though and aren't being removed just to clarify! :,P

End scene:

I wont talk too much about the sewing scene and instead focus on the final section of the afternoon route before it goes into Day 4.

I went through and adjusted this scene to happen differently but it was difficult to make it work around the progression into Day 4 so I cleaned up the dialog and did a small balance with the pacing. I added call backs the player(Y/N) mentioned with Noah to be shown around this part too. :[]

If you like what I create, please consider supporting what I do on kofi [Here]! All donations and tips help tremendously while I continue to work on the game. Thank you to those that optionally bought the [Extended Demo] on itch.io. :,]

Q&A / Ask box is open:

To know and understand Noah through Asks and random posts about lore, they'll be under #Get to know: Noah ! :]

**Some asks won't be answered if it contains spoilers but I do appreciate what I receive. :]

If you have any questions about Trembling Essence/Noah feel free to ask here or on itch.io please. This makes it easier for me to see and answer accordingly! I enjoy hearing from you guys!

That's all I have to share right now. Thank you everyone for the encouraging support, I am very grateful! :,]

[binarystargames]

Valiant Horizon post-itchfund-launch devlog #1: Diceless, Roll for Magnitude, and Roll for Success

This post is about the various mechanical choices made in Valiant Horizon at a very high level. I group these into three categories: Diceless mechanics (stuff that works), Roll for Magnitude mechanics (stuff that works but you roll to see how much), and Roll for Success mechanics (stuff that works if a roll goes your way).

Diceless

The simplest kind of mechanic. This is what Assets, Exhausting Assets, and Burdens are:

You take an action and it works.

If you didn't expend a resource, you add or amplify a complication on that action.

The complications here are Burdens.

The resources here are Assets or Determination (which can either restore the use of an Asset or negate a Burden).

You can also reduce your access to a resource to achieve a larger effect.

This is Exhausting Assets.

The vibe I wanted to achieve wasn't "do you solve problems, overcome obstacles, etc." so much as "how do you do it". We are going to assume, generally, that the protagonists will get to the other side of whatever problem they encounter. The question then becomes: how do they win? What do they prioritize with asset use? What are they willing to let fall by the wayside or go imperfectly to get there? What resources are they willing to pull from the combat side to make it work? Are they willing to overextend themselves to achieve a victory? It becomes a question of resource management and long-term risk rather than short-term probability-based risk.

It's also a matter of spotlight management and diversity of outcomes. If your Windmagus knows they only get one use of wind magic per session, they know they can't solve every problem with that. But maybe they have something in their background that will suffice, or there's a good chance someone else will have something else too that might work. Or if they think whipping up a tornado will solve the problem better, they won't have easy access to their wind magic in the future, but it might be worth it. (Given that the penalty for Exhausting Assets is reset when you gain a level, this also encourages players to go a little more nuts with it near the end of a level - which should probably be something somewhat climactic anyway, so good!)

This is not how it's going to work in every Total//Effect game. Liminal Void, for instance, has more traditional "skill" rolls with Assets being granted by skills or by tools, granting things like advantage or stepping up numerical outputs. Get you a system that does both!

Roll for Magnitude

Now, this isn't to say it's a diceless game! Far from it. You roll a lot in Valiant Horizon. But usually you're rolling for magnitude and not success.

Generally I like the idea of failure-less combat. I'm sure plenty of people love the tension of whiffing attack after attack but it's not my bag in almost any circumstance. I'm fully on board with removing roll-to-hit. One criticism I have of purely diceless systems, though, is that they can lead to very predictable situations, especially when diceless abilities are tied to set effects/powers. (It's what spawned my quarterbacking posts.) Now, of course a GM/Narrator/facilitator/etc can always introduce new things to the scene to spice things up - that's why there's a "the GM does something cool" thing in LUMEN, for example, and why I kept that rule in APOCALYPSE FRAME. But that's already an intensive role, and requiring them to keep things interesting is sometimes a big ask.

As a middle ground, combat in Total//Effect still involves rolls for variable effect for set powers. They all get better at higher Totals (3 dice added), and most of them key something off of Effects (individual die values). This means that something always happens, no matter the roll value - depending on the ability, it may be extremely small, but it's something. Correspondingly, even pretty middling abilities (like basic enemy abilities) can sometimes spike up hard on triple 6's! (This happened literally the first Total//Effect session I ever ran. Incredible moment.)

If you're wondering what probabilities look like for it, I wrote a big piece on it here. Back in October, so parts of it are outdated! I can hardly believe it's been going this long. The math's still good though.

This is also used for Fame rolls for Reputation: Fame decays by a die roll at semi-regular intervals. (This is actually an off-shoot of two separate Total//Effect systems that are in play in Liminal Void, Rolls for Progress and Threats, which are Good Clock and Bad Clock respectively. Having something that conditionally ticks up but at a non-constant rate adds another level of tension to an already tense thing!)

Roll for Success

There is exactly one thing that can still fail on account of a roll: Calling for Aid from Relationships. The tension I want in Valiant Horizon shouldn't come from "does my cool combat stuff work" or "does the cool thing that my hero gave me". It comes from "can I rely on my friends". This is partially because it's a huge benefit! It's a 1/session/relationship thing where you can tag someone in out of turn and outside the action economy (if it goes well). But it's partially because I want that tension: do you, does your character, think they can reliably call on their friends for help?

At low levels of relationship, the answer is...sometimes, but not really. At higher levels, you've gotten a better understanding of how to ask: you can reliably ask for lesser things, but grander things are still dodgy. And at the highest level, you can always rely on them: it'll never fail as such. (Sometimes you'll get a mixed result still.)

---

Dice, rolling, and such are tools in the toolbox. Knowing when you want to use them, how you want to use them, and why goes a long way.

Next devlog, I’ll get into the various classes and start showing off more of the incredible art Charlotte made!

[redrain0o0]

Portal in Minecraft | Devlog 1: Not so fresh beginnings

Hey all! Red here. Welcome to my first Devlog! This will be a set of posts covering progress on my newest project; Portal in Minecraft! I'm trying to remake the entire campaign of Portal 1 inside of Minecraft + a few post launch bonuses (EG: a few popular mods, a chamber builder, some new game modes, ETC). I intend to make this a weekly/monthly thing, it really depends on how much I get done. Now, a few important things, I would foremost like to make it crystal clear that I own NONE of the copyrights to the Portal series, and this is a fan project. I don't intend on making any money off of this project, as this is a fan project to celebrate 20 years of Steam. I do not own any of the GLaDOS voice lines, songs, or other miscellaneous sounds in this project. If Valve wants me to remove anything, I am happy to do so and continue on with my own non-valve assets. It is not my intention to steal Valves sales on the official Portal games, but instead as a celebration of it's success. Now, with all that boring stuff out of the way, lets get into the cool stuff! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This project has already been going for a few weeks, so I decided to start a Devlog now, before it's too late. But don't worry! You haven't missed too much fun stuff. In this Devlog I'll be covering all the stuff I currently have, and in future logs I'll be covering any big things done.

The first feature I would like to cover is where every playthrough of Portal begins, the...

Title Screen!

Now, I know, it might not sound that interesting, but it's still necessary.

As you can see, the map is still very early in progress, but you get the picture. (Also don't mind the armor stands, I'll get there in a minute).

The second big feature is...

Portals!

(I know, the name of the game is the second feature mentioned, just stick with me here)

Please not that these portals are no-where near done, as they are hard coded in rotation for now. As soon as 1.20.2 drops, I'll be working on porting several things to macros.

(Please don't mind the video quality, my computer kinda sucks) (Also I told you we'd get there with the armor stands!)

The final big thing I'd like to show off is the (very work in progress)...

Grabbing!

This is one of the first mechanics you get introduced to in Portal, so it's kinda important to get right. There are still many things to do for it, (like throwing, proper wall collisions, ETC) but it works good enough for the current demo.

(Tumblr wouldn't let me post with the vid embedded, so just pretend please. Also note that most assets seen here are placeholders, don't bully me too hard)

One last thing, if you would like to see more immediate progress, there's a GitHub project page Here

Anyways, this has been devlog 1. Red out!

[gatedelvers]

Devlog 1 - The Cursed Update (is still coming, we're not dead)

(Read in Steam) The latter part of this post will talk about upcoming content in patch 0.2. The early part here is a chronicle of the Fun Times we've had working on patch 0.2. If you want the latter, scroll down until you see a small crab face.

The Fun Times aka Why Isn't There New Stuff Yet

Around the start of July, someone on the Steam forums asked us when the major content updates were coming.

I, foolishly, answered along the lines of "1-2 months, unless something goes wrong :)"

This was not meant to be a challenge to existence as a whole to take every measure possible in order to stop the patch from being finished. I apologise to existence for the misunderstanding, and would like to clarify that I actually just want to make games.

To keep a long list short, in the last bunch of months our 3-person dev team has enjoyed exciting activities like: - Various health issues! - Losing a pet! - Mold poisoning! - Losing a home to a mold infestation! (i'm writing this from my mom's basement, like any self-respecting game developer) - Being harassed by fire alarm malfunctions! - Water damage scares! (unrelated to the mold thing, somehow)

At least we dodged the Unity Situation. Game's in Unreal. Thankfully. Condolences to anyone stuck dealing with that.

As it turns out, weekly disasters combined with a vague sense of time pressure do not for a good game development make. Things seem to have calmed down a bit, and we've been getting work done again, but at a slower rate (and we're still looking into that new, less poisonous apartment thing). I humbly request we be allowed to keep not getting wrecked.

That's enough venting, let's talk about the stuff you're actually here for: more roguelike dungeon crawly things!

The Major Update: 0.2 - Fairweather Fleet

Everything promised for the update in the little box on the main menu is still very much coming, but we've got a lot more details and some extra goodies packed into there! We're looking at:

- The new world, Fairweather Fleet. - A new playable character. - 9 new items, 7 of which are chest loot. - Seals, a new difficulty progression/challenge run system. - Scrap has been removed. - Lots of adjustments (spell rebalancing, new Librarian passive) and fixes to a lot of things.

The patch has definitely gotten a bit bigger than intended, but I'm pretty happy with the additions!

To elaborate on one of those, the removal of Scrap: Scrap as a resource added a lot of busywork before the game would let you stack infusions on your stuff, and the choice of throwing away a cool item to get the scrap necessary to make your other items more cool was never a particularly fun one. Neither was having to pass up on infusions so your co-op partner got to use more of them, and it's not great for a co-op game if having more players reduces the amount of fun stuff the game lets you do.

Infusing things is the fun part. Dealing with scrap costs was generally not. So we decided to remove Scrap entirely and add a simpler restriction to infusion stacking: All items now start with 1 infusion slot available, and each time you defeat a boss, all items everywhere gain 1 more slot for the rest of the run.

We also added gold, because vending machines need something you can pay with. The Scrapper makes gold now. Don't think about it too hard.

So far the results of the change have looked promising (mostly positive feedback from playtesters with a few valid complaints we're working to iron out), and a simpler system is easier to get into. Infusing is one of the cooler parts of the game, so we want everyone to get to play with it! To which end, we're also adding Un-Infusers that let you undo infusions and get all the material items back. They can be found at fountains, so feel free to try that infusion you're not sure will work out! ...After the patch. Not yet.

Thanks for reading, and playing :)

- Kalle-Eemeli "Mag" Paananen Game Designer/Programmer/Multitool Person